WORK ON DELIVERY, NOT PRICE OF SHOTS

President Bill Clinton has a worthy goal: He wants all American children to be immunized against infectious diseases before they enter school.

The worthy goal, unfortunately, hasn't translated into a worthy action plan. Clinton and his advisers need to slow down and take another look at their approach to the vaccination issue.

Among poor people, as few as one in 10 children receives all the recommended vaccinations before entering school. The administration views the problem as one of price.

Under Clinton's $1.1 billion proposal, the federal government would become the sole purchaser of vaccines and would make them available to private doctors and public health agencies free of charge. This, theoretically, would bring the price down and cause poor parents to flock to doctors' offices with children in tow.

The administration's logic, unfortunately, is badly flawed. Currently, vaccine companies sell huge amounts of vaccines to the government at less than the price of manufacturing it. They make up the difference by charging higher prices to private doctors.

Plenty of vaccine is available to poor people at little or no cost. The problem isn't supply, as the administration would have us believe.

The problem is delivering vaccines to the children of people who are either ignorant of the health benefits of vaccines, or too apathetic to bother with them.

The Clinton plan has an unsettling neo-Marxist ring to it, with vaccine manufacturers portrayed as the price-gouging oppressors of a proletariat in desperate need of help.

In reality, the proletariat is failing to take advantage of vaccine programs already available to it.

In pursing his goal of having all children in the nation vaccinated, Clinton should shift his focus from the vaccine manufacturers to the distribution network.

It makes no sense for the government to purchase all the vaccines now being produced when it can't get the vaccines it already buys to the people it is trying to help.